Table of Contents
Do not index
Do not index
Hello there!! 👋
This lesson was created by one of our alumni - Katt, Maker of No-Code Exits and Sprints.so!
Today we'll show you the power of Notion. Many people don't get the hype but it’s a tool to build personal tools.
Shot of Inspiration ☕
“Anything you might want to accomplish—executing a project at work, getting a new job, learning a new skill, starting a business—requires finding and putting to use the right information. Your professional success and quality of life depend directly on your ability to manage information effectively. According to the New York Times, the average person’s daily consumption of information now adds up to a remarkable 34 gigabytes."
-Tiago Forte
A personal wiki is a great way to curate all that information we consume every day to make it accessible when we need it!
Context building 🏔
🧱 Project: Create a Personal Wiki
⏲️ Estimated time: 30 mins
🛠️ Tools: Notion
At this moment you probably have a to-do list app, a spreadsheet with your goals (which you forgot about), docs in different locations, bookmarks everywhere and some wrinkled notes on your desk with ideas.
A life wiki helps you with organising your digital life. In one place you can manage information and knowledge to enhance learning, productivity, and personal growth. All in one location, and not fragmented anymore over dozens of apps.
Notion is the perfect tool for that thanks to it’s flexibility. It lets you create one consolidated workspace 100% tailored to your needs.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to…
- Build a life wiki
- Understand the basics of Notion
- Create your own subpages and databases
- Understand relations and rollups
- See what is possible with automations
- Spice it up with widgets
Let's Prep 🥗
Get ready to build!
To make your life easier when you build, it’s good to get some practical stuff out the way first. Follow these steps so you’re ready to build:
- Create an account in Notion
- Take a 8 minute tour through Notion’s interface
- Get inspired by the templates
- Copy this life wiki template to your Notion so you can use it to copy data
Time to cook 👩🍳
- Create your first page & blocks
Every page in Notion is a fresh canvas which you can fill with all kind of different blocks. By combining this blocks, you can build any page you want.
By using different blocks you will create the first part of your life wiki: the hero header.
Follow this step by step guide.
- Create subpages
There are no folders in Notion. Instead you can organize pages inside pages (= subpages).
In your life wiki you will now create 6 different subpages to later fill with all kind of information to track or organise.
Follow this step by step guide.
- Use templates
In Notion you can choose to start from scratch or to start from a template. Especially in the beginning, it is interesting to check out some templates to see what is possible and to get inspired.
Let’s try that out in your life wiki for one of your subpages: book list.
Follow this step by step guide.
- Create a database (table)
Databases in Notion help you to organize all your information. Think of it as filling cabinets. Each database serves as a container, letting you easily organize a collection of subpages.
In your life wiki you will now create a table database from scratch to organize your notes.
Follow this step by step guide.
- Create another database (gallery) with views and filters
With properties you can search, filter and sort. Like that you can display the same content in different ways (= views).
In your life wiki you will now create a list database from scratch for your bookmarks, set up some views and learn about the notion web clipper.
Follow this step by step guide.
- Set up a relations and roll ups
With the relation property you can connect the data between two tables. And with the rollups property you can display the data from that related table.
In our life wiki (part 1) you will now quickly create a project database. We will relate this database in step 2 with another database.
Follow this step by step guide
In part 2 you will create a kanban task database. Then we want to be able to link the task to our projects (with relation) and show the category automatically (with roll up). In your project database you will link the task to your projects with the relation property.
Follow this step by step guide
- Spice it up with widgets (OPTIONAL STRETCH STEP 👀)
With the embed block you can add some nice-looking or handy features. There are a lot of website with Notion widgets to make your workspace even better (or nicer looking).
Let’s play with that and add some good looking widgets in your Life Wiki.
Follow this step by step guide
- Set up an Automations (OPTIONAL STRETCH STEP 👀)
Improve your efficiency by automating the boring parts of your work. Database automations are a sequence of task that happen any time a specific change to a database occurs. There are triggers that cause the change and actions that are the result of the change.
Some examples:
- Whenever a task status changes, assign it to a specific person
- Whenever a page is added, send a notification in Slack
- Whenever a property is changed, edit a page property in another database
- Let’s set up a simple automation that will make your life wiki easier to use: buttons.
Follow this step by step guide.
💡 Now it’s up to you
To customise your wiki to your needs, here are some steps that may help...
- Think of areas where you struggle with organizing information
- Check the PARA method to help you
- Start simple and extend it step by step
That’s a wrap, we hope you found this lesson helpful!
- If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
- Want to learn NoCode? Join #100DaysOfNoCode for free.
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